The German Candidate Study 2005   [Deutsche Version]

Welcome to the homepage of the German Candidate Study!


Candidates running for public office have been surveyed in the past. Scientific studies of candidates in national parliamentary elections have been conducted in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. These studies have set a standard in terms of comparative candidate surveys.

Situated in this tradition, the German Candidate Study (GCS) 2005 provides two major accomplishments, methodologically and substantively. First, the GCS 2005 updates the time series by adding another time point to study behavioral trends. Second, the GCS 2005 is based on a number of research questions that directly address the analysis of representative democracies in general and reach, therefore, beyond the narrow focus of this inquiry. Attitudes of candidates about politics, their actual campaign and communication strategies as well as their socio-economic background are lying at the core of those research questions

Fieldwork is complete. The response rate was 44%. There are already various publications based on the data, and more are about to follow:

Andreas M. Wüst, Hermann Schmitt, Thomas Gschwend and Thomas Zittel:
Candidates in the 2005 Bundestag Election: Mode of Candidacy, Campaigning and Issues,
German Politics 15 (4), 2006, pp. 420-438.

Thomas Zittel and Thomas Gschwend:
Individualisierte Wahlkämpfe im Wahlkreis. Eine Analyse am Beispiel des Bundestagswahlkampfes 2005,
Politische Vierteljahresschrift 48 (2), 2007, pp. 293-321.

Thomas Zittel and Thomas Gschwend:
Individualised Constituency Campaigns in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: Candidates in the 2005 German Elections, West European Politics 31 (5), 2008, pp. 879-1003.

Andreas M. Wüst: Zur Sozialisation von Neuparlamentariern im 15. Deutschen Bundestag, in: Oscar W. Gabriel, Bernhard Weßels and Jürgen W. Falter (eds.): Wahlen und Wähler. Analysen aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2005, Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2009, pp. 328-345.

 Andreas M. Wüst: Bundestagskandidaten und Einwanderungspolitik: Eine Analyse zentraler Policy-Aspekte, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 19 (1), 2009, pp. 77-105.
Andreas M. Wüst: Wahlverhalten und politische Repräsentation von Migranten,
Der Bürger im Staat, 56 (4), pp. 228-234.


Questionnaires

for Constituency Candidates (in German)
for pure List Candidates (in German)

International Core Questionnaire (in English)

Research Directors of the German Candidate Study 2005

Prof. Thomas Gschwend, Ph.D.
 PD Dr.
Hermann Schmitt
Mannheim Center
for European Social Research
 Dr.Andreas M. Wüst
 PD Dr.
Thomas Zittel





Focus on campaigning
and strategic voting
Focus on political attitutes and issues;
international coordination
 DFG project:
Personal Campaign Strategies
and Political Representation

Focus on political representation;
project managment
Focus on campaigning;
main grant applicant

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